


Trost 67

by Lilviscious



Series: SnK Kink Meme Fills [8]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Male Slash, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 12:53:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilviscious/pseuds/Lilviscious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Marco doesn’t die in the battle to seal Wall Rose, surviving his brutal injuries due to his Titan healing abilities. Although horrified, Marco concedes to be of use to Hanji’s experiments. This new development unsettles him and despite the comfort his comrades bestow him with, only because of Jean can he endure the horrors of reality, if only for short, tender moments at a time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Gentle Giant

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the following snk kink meme [request](http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/2848.html?thread=3673120#cmt3673120).

No one had seen this side of him before. No one knew what to truly expect. What would he look like? Recognizable? How tall would he be and how much of his human intelligence would remain? Marco claimed he had never transformed into a Titan before and therefore couldn’t predict his physical or mental condition.

“You will need a trigger, an injury and a goal, understood? You have to **want** to transform,” Hanji explained while taking notes on Eren’s transformation. She had none on Marco so far, today marking his first participation and all who were present to experience it were anxious. Marco’s eyes drifted to Eren’s hand where the boy had bitten himself repeatedly until he transformed. He couldn’t imagine doing the same. Logically, he wasn’t fond of pain. Mustering up the courage, Marco copied his comrade’s idea by puncturing the skin between his thumb and pointer with his teeth. He flinched and the people surrounding him held their breaths. Nothing changed, nothing happened. Marco swallowed the irony flavoured liquid that lay heavily on his tongue and shifted uncertain eyes to his supervisors.

“Need some help?” An impatient Levi stared him down. His voice was flat, his expression unimpressed. “No, thank you, sir,” Marco replied stiffly as he had done the past few years whenever Chief instructor Keith Shadis insulted and humiliated him. He has seen Levi during the battle of Trost and knew what he was capable of.

Jean released an unstable breath. He wasn’t prepared for this, not by far. Sweat had gathered on his brow and his heart pounded against his chest. This was for humanity, he knew, but selfishly he didn’t want to see whatever Marco looked like as their enemy. The teenager’s round face, gentle eyes and light laughter, was what Jean wanted to be reminded of whenever he saw him. It was equally difficult for the young man in question who shifted his teeth to his other hand, hesitated and then rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

What monster would he become if this actually worked? Would he resemble his human form or become a wickedly grinning Titan? A monster on a feeding frenzy. Anything but that, Marco thought desperately to himself. He closed his eyes, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. Images flashed before his eyelids, horrible parts of the battle at Trost, the Titans ripping his comrades apart with gleeful looks, snapping their bodies in half with razor sharp teeth. Marco’s breathing accelerated, brows knotting tightly. No. He wanted to be like Eren, to be of use somehow. If he was not, Lance Corporal Levi had promised to end him swiftly, painlessly. But was he prepared for a sudden death should the small man decide he was dangerous? If he transformed and hurt someone, and lived to see what had become of them, would he even **want** to live?

Marco turned his head, briefly glancing Jean’s way. His friend stared at him with similar wavering confidence, but when they locked eyes, the left side of his lips twitched into a staged smirk. “Show that dipshit, Jaeger what ya got,” he told him, encouraging him through clenched teeth and with fisted hands. “You got more control in your _freckles_ than he’s got in his entire body,” Jean added, broadening his stance to come off certain of his words. The underlying message was clear to him. Jean was anxious as well, yet believed in him to not become a mindless monster. With his support, Marco managed a small smile.

He concentrated. He needed to transform to aid the Survey Corps in understanding Titans, their powers and weaknesses. With that information, defeating them could decrease their casualties. Yes, he could save his comrades, he would, instead of harming them, he wouldn’t. Determined, Marco chose his wrist to inflict the necessary injury that triggered his transformation.

A bright explosion of light blinded him, causing him to shield his eyes. He didn’t lower his hand until hot steam brushed his skin and ruffled his garments and hair. As the smoke cleared, Jean tilted his head backwards to gaze up at the giant before him. Similar to Eren, a 15 meter class Titan had appeared. Whereas Eren had bellowed like an animal, Marco simply exhaled roughly and shifted its lanky legs. There were several distinctive differences between them and Hanji hurried to note them down as she paraded around Marco. She was ecstatic to add his information to her research, calling him magnificent and beautiful.

Unlike Eren not his entire body consisted out of flesh. Although both Titans showed fleshless jaws, the gaps on Marco’s face were significantly smaller. His eyes were grey and surrounded by dark circles, their sunken position making him look ill combined with his pale complexion. Three thin lines of muscles ran down his eyes to his cheekbones. Jean clenched his jaws at the sight, unable to think it appeared like Marco was crying.

Those weren’t the only fleshless parts on his body, however. There were oddly shaped figures along his neck, reminding him of a fish’s gills. Aligned to his eyebrows several more spots ran across his skin, but the ones that caught Jean’s prominent attention were the dots the boy was known for. Even in this bizarre form, Marco’s freckles softened his solemn look. Scattered along his cheeks as they did in his human form, it was fairly easy to recognize the teenager. While Eren’s hair grew a few inches, Marco’s kept its original length entirely. They hadn’t been able to identify Eren as the Rogue Titan until he had shown his human body emerging from its neck, but this Titan, this was obviously Marco and the similarity was shocking. Jean felt his eyes burn when he didn’t blink them while staring at his friend. The Titan’s posture was almost delicate, not nearly as muscular as Eren’s, but defined muscles showed on his legs up to his abdomen and arms where three fleshless stripes flowed from his shoulder to his biceps. Two similar lines coursed along his ribs on both sides, depicting him more vulnerable than Eren on first sight.

“Interesting, just as tall, but different in built, perhaps deceptively so,” Hanji muttered to herself as she rounded Marco once more, halting in front of him to take some final notes. Looking up, the woman yelled several questions at him. “Can you understand me? Can you speak? Can you move as fast as Eren? You don’t feel hungry, do you? Would you like to eat me, perhaps?”

Marco didn’t move a muscle, but his eyes were strained at her blabbering form. For a moment Jean feared she had unintentionally (though he bet she’d die happily, that crazy woman) triggered Marco’s savage Titan nature, but the Titan’s head moved in a very human manner, denying one or several of the many questions fired at him. Hanji looked disappointed, but positively announced that Marco seemed to understand the human language.

“Are you feeling alright?” she asked next, somewhat more concerned now that her original delight was subduing. A short noise resounded from the Titan, a sound so soft and gentle that Jean’s chest ached. Even Marco’s sounds came off as tortured. He kept a close eye on his friend as Hanji let him perform easy tasks such as moving his toes and fingers one by one, swinging his arms up and down and walking around almost casual. Throughout the exercises he couldn’t help but notice Marco’s eyelids lowering as time passed. Whether he was tired or getting distracted, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t the only one to notice. Hanji, as joyful as she was taking notes on everything, had to be interrupted by Levi whose sharp eyes analyzed the situation far better than Jean’s.

“He’s going to fall over and squash us. Let him turn back,” the small man stated. Hanji raised his eyes to Marco’s hunched form, his arms hanging numbly in front of him as he awaited more instructions. He made more tiny sounds although his jaws didn’t move, the noise slipping through the fleshless parts on his jaw. “He sounds like a kicked puppy,” Hanji commented with a thoughtful look. “Are you hurt?” she asked to which Marco’s eyes closed. His giant form became unstable and the people surrounding it panicked instantly, their calls of distress not loud enough to deafen Levi’s colourful cursing.

Before humanity’s most powerful soldier can draw his weapons, steam emitted from Marco’s body. The heat was unbearable, drenching Jean’s shirt in sweat upon impact. He fought through the moist smoke with squinted eyes and jerked in surprise when the ground shook. In front of him Marco had fallen to his knees, his head lolled forwards, and exposing his neck where said teenager emerged with tear-streaked cheeks and pained cries. His screams of terror ran cold shivers down his spine and prompted him into action immediately. The flesh of Marco’s Titan form was soaring hot, nearly burning him as he leapt onto the body and wrapped his arms around Marco’s torso from behind. With all his might, Jean pulled and yelled at his friend to hang on. Marco felt just as hot, his body temperature increased and radiating through their clothing against his chest. It took two swings of Levi’s blades to free Marco from the dissipating body.

Jean supported Marco and didn’t know what made him cry along with the man in obvious pain; the loss of his limbs as they had yet to pinpoint exact lines to ensure no damage to either him or Eren, or hearing Marco’s muffled sobbing into his neck.


	2. Security

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is to sooth the aching of the heart, if only a little.

He had been allowed inside the cage after weeks of experiments had proven that Marco was as obedient as he had been when thought of as solely human. The fact he hosted Titan abilities formed no threat to them, for now. Eren was of higher priority, showed more strength and more astonishing skills to utilize in battle while Marco had yet to excel at anything bar full control of his giant form. Jean hated him nonetheless, but perhaps a little less now that the boy had demanded a different vicinity to sleep in, seeing as: ‘I can’t stand their bedroom eyes any longer’.

Eren’s meddling had cleared the tension that had surrounded them upon Marco’s miraculous survival. They had spent a lot of time together before the battle of Trost, but now they were inseparable, unless Levi made demands. One should never test the Lance Corporal’s patience.

Their intimate friendship had shifted, boundaries dissipating without a thought other than wanting to be together. Jean thought to have lost Marco and he wasn’t entirely convinced that he hadn’t. Marco resembled the boy he shared three years of his teen years with. The sudden invasion of the Titans had turned them into adult men, however. Fighting humongous monsters was no longer some goal of the future, but an anxious daily activity. Jean had bawled his eyes out over Marco’s death and knew words such as ‘despair’ and ‘anguish’ were hardly befitting to describe the emptiness and pain inside his chest. For hours, he had mourned him.

“Don’t misinterpret this, I’m just a concerned friend!” Jean had even exclaimed when Marco’s ears turned red at Eren’s face of disgust. “Is that all you are?” he had asked in return, hardly as timid as the colour on his cheeks made him seem. His eyes that had become weary and supported permanent dark circles underneath, had shone a bit brighter, reminding Jean of the gleeful looks they used to share during training. Eren had left them in the dungeon in quite a hurry.

“Are you comfortable?”

“Yes.”

“Raise the sheets a bit, it’s cold.”

“It is? Sure.”

Marco flinched at the touch to his forehead glistening with sweat. The hand lowered to his cheek before it retreated, resting across his lap. “You should have told me you’re having a fever,” Jean said accusingly. “It seemed like you had enough to worry over,” Marco countered with flaring cheeks.

“Don’t make fun of me,” Jean muttered quietly against the body pressed against his front, resting in between his legs and against his chest. His arms held him loosely despite the nerves that twisted in his stomach. “For liking me? I wouldn’t dare,” Marco responded jokingly. He caressed Jean’s knuckles with his finger as the man behind him shifted uneasily. “He said ‘their bedroom eyes’, so you’re as much to blame as I am,” Jean huffed defensively. “To blame for what?”

Jean looked up from Marco’s shoulder without an answer. He wanted to blame his unusual apprehension on Eren for causing a misunderstanding, only to caught himself lying. It wasn’t a misunderstanding, but a confession he hadn’t been prepared for to voice. Forced out in the open there was nothing to deny, least he wanted to harm Marco’s feelings. Marco, he had suffered enough as it was.

Ever since his first transformation the freckled boy developed a severe case of insomnia. Slipping into unconsciousness after turning back couldn’t be called falling asleep. It concerned everyone, increased Krista’s motherly antics that made Jean snap at her until she was crying and Ymir threatened to slice out his tongue. Krista still assisted him by taking care of Marco when he was obliged to leave his side to attend to business elsewhere. It had become a daily activity of hers to break Marco’s fevers with moist cloths during his absence. When he’d return, Krista would tell him of what Marco said during his hazy condition, words of anguish and regret, but most of all fear for the moment he’d transform and lose control. Jean wondered if Marco knew he was aware of his dread.

He held him a tad tighter. In front of him, Marco’s head had turned capturing his eyes briefly. “You should sleep,” he told him avoiding his eyes once more. “Right back at you,” Jean scoffed. Marco’s body sagged a little more against his, the man’s head coming to rest on his shoulder. “I feel better when I’m awake,” he confessed softly. The blanket resting at their waist was finally tugged on to cover them from the cold of the night that settled in outside. Hours had passed since Jean first joined him on the bed in a room vacant save for him and Marco. Quiet, suffering Marco.

He had surprised him by his sudden embrace, knocking them down on the bed as he buried his face in his neck. It wasn’t the first time Jean latched on to him like this, but something about the man’s tight grip on his shirt alarmed him. Later on they shifted into a position that provided more comfort. Chest to back, neither of them had to face each other unless they wished to.

Exhaustion was getting the better of him. When his head fell forward and suddenly bumped into Marco’s, both of them winced. “Tsk.. sorry.” Jean bit back a curse and rubbed at his aching cheekbone. Marco covered his forehead with a sigh. “Your body will be sore if you fall asleep like this,” he scolded the other. The sense of familiarity that came with Marco’s concern for his health caused Jean to smile. “You look like you feel much worse. I’ll lie down if you promise to rest,” he bargained with a stifled yawn.

He had expected Marco to face the other side, but when he found him face to face as they lay in bed, Jean quickly closed his eyes. “Sleep,” he muttered to the restless body before him. Marco’s hot breath fell on his face as he exhaled. Silence commenced long enough for Jean to relax his body, getting used to the heat of another person in his bed. He opened his eyes slightly to check on his companion and scanned Marco’s passive face for traces of discomfort. Fighting terrifying thoughts and images created a furrow on the boy’s pale face.

Jean reached for him, his pointer pushing gently in between his eyebrows in an attempt to relief some of his anxiety. Half lidded eyes watched him gratefully. His finger followed the curve of his brow wiping away cold sweat, rounded his cheek and entered a patch of freckles. It descended further to his lips where he traced the bottom one ever so carefully. There were small puffs of laboured breath caused by his fever. The structure of his face looked handsome even as his cheeks were flustered and hot.

Jean shifted an inch closer, swallowing audibly. Marco held his breath and tilted his head upward.

The feather-light kiss pulled a wavering sigh from his lips. It was sweet and gentle, as were the few timid pecks of closed lips that followed. He had seen kisses before, wild and passionate ones, except these were not to arouse. These were his comfort, his only security.


	3. Convulsion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This part resolves around Jean discovering Marco’s body and the fact that he is not as lifeless as expected.

All the while he was condemned to search and gather remains, his heart pounded achingly hard against his chest. The thought of finding him amongst his fallen comrades drained the colour from his face, leaving him pale with eyes frantic and frightened. He coughed into the cloth secured around his mouth and knew it provided little of protection against bacteria and the nauseating stench that had spread amongst the streets of Trost like a heavy cloak of death.

Hours passed since Jean lifted his first lifeless, cold corpse with shaking hands and trembling knees. Some were easier to lift, lighter in weight, but more difficult to look at. He rather broke a sweat dragging an entire body to the cart than lose whatever food was left in his stomach after this exhausting battle when encountering torsos without legs, arms or even heads.

He didn’t dare think he had seen the worst of it, feared what other damage the Titans had left for them scattered around town, and he was terrified of recognizing him. His name was stuck in his throat as it had been ever since he regrouped with his fellow comrades of the 104th trainees squad where he wasn’t even the one to acknowledge his absence. It had been Armin, whose usual vibrant blue eyes were tinted as red as his, who pointed out Marco was not amongst them. A quick headcount had brought on the nausea that resumed to sit heavy in the pit of his stomach as he wandered the streets in eerie silence.

The man who had walked with him the last few hours had hardly said a word. Jean didn’t know him personally and felt no desire to acquaint the guy in these circumstances, choosing to ignore his existence for most of their search until a strangled noise distracted him from trying to identify the body before him. Turning towards his comrade, Jean realized the man was both shocked and frightened at the sight of a body whose right arm and likewise side of his face were ripped off by sharp Titan teeth. It wasn’t a pretty sight to behold, Jean thought as he sighed and turned back to the task at hand.

“W-What is he?!” his comrade stuttered petrified of the corpse. Jean rose to his feet and neared them cautiously, his steady steps faltering quite suddenly.

What was most peculiar was the smoke that continued to appear from those exact injuries, not to mention the fact that the longer Jean stared he could have sworn the man’s damaged arm was enlarging. Regenerating, is what Hanji would tell him later, but at the time he couldn’t comprehend how such a thing was possible. Most importantly, he couldn’t believe that he had finally found him, albeit through someone else.

The comrade he was closest with throughout those three tough years of training appeared lifeless, his back resting against a brick wall and his head tilted in a way that would strain his neck if he were still alive. The cloth before his mouth was suddenly suffocating him, but removing it hardly offered him enough oxygen to keep his lungs from aching. He panted harshly, irregularly and fell to his knees next to his body. He couldn’t move for what felt like an eternity as he stared at his pale face and what was missing of it.

In that moment he thought about everything and nothing at all, nothing sensible that could prepare him for the most horrifying experience in his entire life. He thought of his first encounter with a Titan, that time he was nearly eaten by one, the feeling of desperation when informed his beloved friend was gone, and then finding said man in a shape that would haunt him at night for weeks to come. They were all horrifying memories, but none compared to the sight of him _moving_.

Jean jerked backwards, landing on his bottom and supporting his weight on his hands with a frightened whimper. Bacteria were the least of his worries; he was certain he had lost every bit of sanity he had left. How else could he explain this illusion?

“Ah!” he exclaimed with enlarged eyes staring at the one remaining on his face. It stared right at him, right through him, had lifted its hollow gaze from the ground.

Beside him his companion chanted verses of prayers Jean had long forgotten. God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Jean doubted they could do anything to reverse time. They didn’t make a difference, but Marco’s moving _eye_ did. It changed everything, turned his world upside down as it did his stomach, but there was nothing in his stomach to rise in his throat safe for sour bile burning him from within.

The man turned on his heels, hands in his hair as he called out for help on the top of his lungs. Jean however could hardly make another sound, could hardly do anything at all as that eye, his eye, fell closed and opened just as slowly.

Exhibiting convulsions or reflexes was a normal phenomenon, wasn’t it? Sometimes a human body could still churn after death, for example by an external stimulus while passing. Hadn’t someone once told him that hundreds of years ago a human race used something called a guillotine, that severed criminals and that the head was shown not only to frighten the people, but as a final humiliation of the executed as well. Roughly half a minute, one could still see and hear what was happening, because the brain doesn´t turn itself off immediately once they no longer get oxygen-rich blood. Did that explain the seemingly controlled movement in front of him? There was nothing twitchy about it, nothing spontaneous or irregular. It was deliberately gazing at him, Jean thought with laboured pants.

His arms quivered and gave in, the pain to his head from colliding with the ground not registering until he woke up in a bed hours later.

He was in a room filled with groaning and whimpering bodies writhing and tensing on their beds. Whether they were plague by pain or nightmares or possibly even both, Jean didn’t know. Frankly, he didn’t care. He had his own nightmares that bathed him in cold sweat.

His hand found the small lump on the back of his head with the cautious thought that it had all been a terrible dream. Despite that Jean wasn’t able to fool himself completely. It left a hole in his memory as to how he got himself knocked out in the first place, but there were enough reasons, more rational ones, which could explain his condition. Jean pressured the injury on his head and saw little, white stars dance before his eyes. They looked like stars, but they weren’t. Exhaustion of the visual cells created illusions. Yes, and combining that with the speculation of Marco’s death, it wasn’t entirely illogical for him to have imagined everything. Traumatized, he was simply the subject to psychological trauma. He wouldn’t be the first.

 

The words: ‘Marco’s alive,’ nearly caused him to lose conscious once more.

After regaining his senses he was discharged from the bed and sent to join his comrades in the mess hall where his entry had caused the room to fall silent. Jean’s lip quirked into a snarl, ready to demand why they were looking at him oddly, when Eren – _Eren frigging Jaeger_ – spoke and stabbed him in the chest (well not really, but he might as well could have), ripping his heart out to squash it before his eyes. The guts that little shit had, Jean felt homicidal inclinations evaporate the emotion that needed his attention most: grief. Fuck grief and fuck Eren Jaeger. He was **furious**.

It was Reiner’s heavy hand on his shoulder that stabilized him, but the taller man couldn’t prevent the fury that surfaced within him. Whatever profanities burst out of his mouth hardly impressed the smallest man in the room, the one whose presence Jean had not acknowledged and therefore was taken by surprise by when Lance Corporal Levi swiftly swung his arm behind his back and pressed his face to the table with his other. Growling in anger, Jean could merely fantasize of grabbing Eren’s neck and throttling him slowly, painfully, as heartlessly as the asshole had been for toying with him just now.

“Shut your filthy mouth,” the man ordered calmly though the strain on his muscles increased significantly. Jean grunted in defeat, pushing his torso off the table and clutching his arm once it was released. His eyes were sharp and filled with hatred as he glanced in Eren’s direction beyond Mikasa’s defensive posture. That hotheaded part of him that had made him believe he could have laid a finger on the guy was now scolding him; even without Levi, Mikasa would have struck him without breaking a sweat. He was such a pitiful guy, after all.

“It’s the truth,” a lighter voice spoke from his left. A lithe girl whom he knew by the name of Krista watched him with eyes full of wonder and sympathy. Her small hands were folded over her chest as she offered him a gentle smile. “He needs rest, but he is very much alive,” she elaborated.

“Impossible,” Jean muttered, head light and dizzy. Connie nudged him onto a bench where Jean rested his head in his hand, his elbow digging into the wooden table. “You know we’re not lying. You found him first, didn’t you?” Armin asked from beside Eren on the opposite side of the furniture. Eren refused to pay Jean any attention, but his blonde friend watched him curiously.

Recalling that memory proved more difficult than expected. The last day or so felt like a terrible nightmare, a foggy haze within his mind and something he rather forgot. Forget about Marco’s gazing eye, he couldn’t. Jean shivered and closed his eyes tightly to fight the image from his vision.

“The guy I was with found him first,” Jean mumbled finally. Armin nodded in understanding. “He did. He didn’t recognize Marco, but noticed something odd about his body. He called for help and they found you unconscious beside him,” Armin explained. It dawned on him that the question had been to test his memory, not so much as to sate the boy’s curiosity.

“What you saw scared you shitless. You fainted,” Levi’s blunt voice stated as he moved to stand at the head of the table with arms crossed over his chest. Jean lifted his gaze to watch humanity’s most powerful soldier and couldn’t help but question his presence amongst them other than to keep an eye out on Jaeger. With the man’s dark eyes holding his lighter ones, he knew that was not all. “It seems Bodt and Jaeger share whatever necessary to transform them into buttugly monsters,” he said. “Both fall under my supervision, but Bodt appears mentally unstable for now.”

A look of concern grew on Sasha’s face as she gnawed on her nails like she was munching on corn. Jean caught himself raising a finger to his own hand just in time to not indulge into that old habit. Alright, he was spooked, thoroughly so, and he was confused and while Jaeger’s ‘surprise I’m a Titan!’ had been difficult to swallow, to have the same thing happen to Marco simply didn’t make sense in a way that Jean felt his lips twitch into a desperate smile. He knew he was seconds away from hysterical laughter and folded a hand over his mouth to prevent his insanity from showing.

Marco, a Titan. Hilarious, morbid, but hilarious. What stage of grieving was this? Was he still in denial? Was it just him or were all of them messed up from the attack on Trost? Lance Corporal Levi looked as cranky and distant as ever, though. It was illogical to think they were pulling his leg. His wide eyes looked at Krista briefly; that sweet girl would never join in on such a heartless joke. Which only meant they were telling the truth, weren’t they? Marco was alive, miraculously saved by being the same as the monsters they trained to kill for the past few years.

The irony caused the first giggle to slip through his fingers. He turned around, pressing his hand firmly to his mouth and presenting his back to the others. Another uncontrollable sound resounded in his throat. By the time someone laid a comforting hand on his shoulder, Jean didn’t know why he was laughing and crying at once. His emotions and thoughts were a hurricane inside his quivering form.

 

It took half a day to calm down. His eyes stung, his throat was sore and his body exhausted. Levi had sent him back to the infirmary accompanied by Connie and Sasha who were most awkward to be with when having a mental break down. They had been comrades for three years now, but neither knew how to distract or comfort him. They didn’t know him well enough, not like Marco did.

Still, they offered soothing smiles and patches of cloth for Jean to wipe his eyes and nose with. Sasha had even smuggled some food from the kitchen for Jean to eat, but had eaten the entire thing gladly when he muttered in between tears and half chocked laughter that he couldn’t even get his spit down his throat. He was drooling for heaven´s sake. What was wrong with him? If this was what a mental break down felt like, Jean would never again use the term as a joke as of today.

“Dude, you okay?” the smaller boy asked cautiously after an eerie minute of silence between the three of them. Jean stared at the ceiling a moment longer before he nodded somewhat hesitantly. Connie took it as a good sign however, apparently relieved and instantly falling back into the role of the jester amongst their lot.

“Great, because you been at it for hours and I can’t handle this stuff anymore. Damn, Lance Corporal didn’t look like it, but I bet your awful clyghing made him crap himself,” he said with a faint grin. Jean furrowed his brow, but it was Sasha who spoke next.

“Whaz clyghingk?” she asked munching on a piece of bread. “Combination of crying and laughing. I’ve never seen someone so hysterical before. I guess we could just call it ‘jeaning’,” he retorted cheekily. His toothy grin was as contagious as ever. “Shut up, Springer.” Jean snorted for good measure, rubbing a long finger underneath his nose with a faint smirk blossoming on his face.

The familiarity that came with Connie’s awful sense of humour soothed his nerves enough to make him moist his dry lips and clear his throat. “Where is he?”

**Author's Note:**

> You will notice that these parts are hardly chronological. I find it rather charming not to be able to predict the flow of a story too much. Therefore I have chosen to upload the separate pieces as I see fit rather than following a timeline. For the description of Marco’s Titan form, I was inspired by [this beautiful artifact](http://scoutology.tumblr.com/post/59279013122/the-gentle-titan-im-seeing-marco-titan), which is in fact inspired by Guchax. All hail Guchax!


End file.
